Kathmandu- Anita Acharya, a resident of Kalanki in Kathmandu Metropolitan City-14, feels scared whenever she sees a tipper on the road while riding her scooter. She thinks that she might become a character of the news. As soon as she sees a tipper, she hurries to the side of the road. “I am among the riders who readily make way for a tipper,” she said.
Every day she finds tippers rushing towards their destinations on Kalanki-Kantipath road. Another reason for her worry is the pathetic condition of the road though she knows about the traffic rules.
“The condition of the road is not good and almost all the drivers of the tipper are young,” Acharya said. She thinks that the young drivers tend to take rash decisions without considering the consequences of their actions, and how that will affect the bike and scooter riders. She feels the tipper drivers think that they won’t be injured even if an accident occurs as the parts of tipper are strong.
“On top of that, the tipper drivers even move their vehicles towards the side lane with the intention to tease the riders whenever they see a scooter,” she said.
Acharya’s experience is just a case in point. Almost all the bike and scooter riders have similar experiences when they ride on the roads of Kathmandu. Most of the drivers are young and driver the tippers irresponsibly. There is also a growing tendency among the two-wheeler riders to breach traffic rules and overtaking from the wrong side and entering wherever they find space during traffic jams.
Recently, the government had decided to ban daytime operation of tipper inside all three districts of Kathmandu Valley. Following the announcement, one can see a long queue of tippers entering the Kathmandu Valley. With the beginning of evening, thousands of tippers entered the Kathmandu Valley at the same time that creates a kind of terror among the scooter riders. Not only for scooter riders, pedestrians also have to face the problem to cross the road.
Earlier on August 25, one person died on the spot and five other sustained critical injuries when a tipper (Ba 2 Kha 4317) heading towards Gaushala from Tinkune hit three motorbikes at Sinamangal.
A woman lost her life after a tipper hit the scooter she was riding on at Bhaktapur a month ago. These are just the examples. According to the statistics of Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, 21 persons lost their lives in road accidents across the country in the fiscal year 2018/19.
The Metropolitan Traffic Police Division said that 19 persons and 21 persons had died in the fiscal year 2016/17 and 2017/18 respectively.
It has been learnt that tipper is also one of the reasons of road growing accident. Though the government has fixed the time for tippers to ply the roads, the accidents have been increasing due to the sheer negligence of drivers, DSP Padam Bahadur Bista of Metropolitan Traffic Police Division said.
He said that the concerned agencies, who have been piling pressure on the government to allow the tippers to ply the roads during the day time, should think seriously about this issue.
DSP Bista said that the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) should take the decision that whether there is infrastructure according to the structure of tippers in Nepal or not and whether the tippers should be allowed to ply in the places where there are congested roads.
Ways to minimize accidents: improvement in structure
Experts said that the main problem is the structure of the tipper. They suggested that the engine and other parts of the tippers should be changed to minimize the accidents. Talking to Hakahaki, Traffic engineer Ashish Gajurel said that one option to minimize the accidents is technical progress.
“We don’t have other option than to set the engine of tipper 30 km per hour,” he said.
He said that other vehicles are also equally responsible for the road accidents not only the tipper. Gajurel was of the opinion that reckless driving during the night time is also another reason for rising road accidents.
He said that the number of road accidents could be minimized if the people drive the vehicles carefully.
“The government has fixed the time for tippers to ply the roads in other countries also. Apart from that, people should be careful while driving their vehicles,” he said.
Number of tipper increased due to infrastructure construction
With a rapid growth in construction of infrastructure, the number of tipper has been increased recently. Tippers have been used mostly while transporting the materials in the big construction sites. Not only in Nepal, the number of tippers have also been increased in India and South Asian countries which has resulted in drastic increase of road accidents.
According to the Global status report on road safety 2018, launched by WHO in December 2018, 54 percent of the people died in road accidents are pedestrians, bicycle and motorbike riders. Of them, most of the people lost their lives in accidents involving tipper.
According to the same report, the country which has low economic rate has 1 percent vehicles in total of the world. But 13 percent people lost their lives in road accidents. The countries which have high economic rate have 40 percent of vehicles in the world. But only 7 percent lost their lives in the road accidents. It has been found that tippers have been used widely in the countries which have low economic rate.
Tipper’ structure
The structure of tipper is bigger than other vehicles. As the tipper has big structure, drivers hardly see small vehicles like scooter, motorbike, car and pedestrians.
The speed of the tipper is higher than other vehicles. The accidents have been occurring frequently as the drivers could not apply the brakes whenever they want like other small vehicles.
Registration of transportation
If we look at the details of 1989/ 90 provided by the Department of Transport Management (DoTM), 6,532 dozers, excavators and trucks are registered with the department. The number has surged by two fold till the fiscal year2017/18.
While we see the statistics of last five years, the number of heavy vehicles have been increasing by thousand every year. As many as 2,789 vehicles have registered in fiscal year 2013/14 while the number had increased by two-fold and reached 4,236 in the fiscal year 2014/15.
Similarly, it has been found that 8,328 vehicles were registered at the department in the fiscal year 2015/16, while 12,712, 12,154 vehicles were registered in fiscal year 2016/ 17 and 2017/ 18 respectively. It has been learnt that 9,958 heavy vehicles were registered at the department in the fiscal year 2018/19.
According to the statistics, 12,154 small and big vehicles were registered in fiscal year 2018/ 19, 249 in Mechi, 672 in Koshi, 74 in Sagarmatha, 228 in Janakpur, 3, 746 in Narayani, 4,104 in Bagmati, 544 in Gandaki, 1,546 in Lumbini, 1 in Dhaulagiri, 202 in Rapti, 372 in Bheri, 341 in Seti, 75 in Mahakali.
What are the punishments for offenders?
The Motor Vehicles and Transport Management Act, 2049 (1993) has criminalized various acrimonious activities and offences relating to motor vehicles and has provisions for action and fine for the rules violators. Section 161 of the Act has a provision for punishment for life- imprisonment along with confiscation of his or her entire property if a person driving a motor vehicle runs over or knocks down any person or causes a vehicle accident in any manner and that person who is inside the motor vehicle or in any place outside the vehicle dies immediately, and if such act is committed with the intention to kill that person. And if, despite the commission of such act with intention to kill, the victim survives death, the person driving the motor vehicle shall be punished with imprisonment for a term from five years to twelve years, according to the gravity of offence.
Likewise, sub-section (3) states that if a person while driving a motor vehicle in a circumstance where it does not appear likely to result in the death of anyone meets with an accident resulting in the death of a person who is inside the motor vehicle or in any place outside the motor vehicle, the person driving the motor vehicle shall be punished with imprisonment for term not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding two thousand rupees or with both punishments.
In sub-section (4) if a person who does not hold the driving license drives a motor vehicle and thereby commits any offence referred to in Sub-section (1) or (2), that person shall be punished with an additional fine of two thousand rupees, in addition to the punishment to which that person is liable under that Sub-section.
